International Alliance Charity Monastery

"Something's wrong!"

International Alliance Charity Monastery—Putekoloni. The moment Oak entered, he sensed that something was off.

Their advance had gone far too smoothly. According to Linlin's intelligence, this was one of the World Government's charitable institutions and should have had a large number of guards. Yet they had met no particularly stubborn resistance as they pushed inward, reaching this depth with ease.

But the others did not share his caution.

"What's so strange about it? These guys are too weak. What can they possibly do against us? Stop talking nonsense and hurry up and find the treasure!"

Blinded by treasure, the group split into several teams and began searching. Oak had no choice but to follow suit and headed toward a room as well.

Come to think of it, with the lineup of their group, even if there really was some scheme, it could not pose much of a threat.

With one kick, he smashed open the room's door and found it filled with treasure.

"We really struck it rich!"

Fierce strode inside, pulled out a huge sack from who knew where, and began stuffing treasure into it by the armful.

"These bastards used charity as a front to hoard this much treasure!"

Even Newgate was stunned. An institution that claimed to be charitable had piled up so much treasure—and this was only one room. Looking around, he saw that the others had also made substantial hauls.

"This really is..."

Newgate suddenly felt anger rising within him. Clearly, the monks here had never used the donations they collected to help those who truly needed them. All this treasure, which should have gone to the poor and children trapped in the mire of war, had been kept here. The fate of those children in need of aid was easy to imagine.

He had once been one of those children himself. He knew how painful it was to live without help, and what it meant for countless children to die every day.

So with a bang, he smashed the wall beside him to pieces with one punch.

"Don't leave a single thing for those bastards!"

For the first time, he personally began carrying the treasure. Before long, he had hoisted two huge sacks onto his shoulders, thoughtfully leaving not even a scrap for the monastery's monks.

Oak and Kaido helped from the side as well, and within moments, the room had been stripped bare.

"Let's go to the next room!"

Fierce glanced at the overflowing loot on his shoulder, a satisfied smile curling his lips as he prepared to head to the next place to plunder.

But just then—

Rumble...

The ground beneath their feet suddenly caved in, and everyone fell under gravity into an underground passage.

"What's going on?"

Kaido was still puzzled when, with a clang, an iron plate suddenly sealed the opening above them, trapping them completely.

"Obviously, we walked into a trap!"

Oak spread his hands. He had said something was wrong earlier, and now it had proven true. The monks here had been prepared and had laid a trap for them.

But neither he nor the others took the trap seriously.

They thought this could trap them? Who were they looking down on?

"Hurry! Throw bombs in and blow them to death!"

Several urgent shouts came from the darkness, followed by a few flickers of firelight.

Rumble...

Explosions rang out one after another as someone tossed bombs into the passage where they stood.

"These bastards!"

Kaido snorted coldly and stood at the rear of the group, using his body to withstand all the blasts coming from behind.

Karmic Retribution

Fierce, meanwhile, stood at the front of the group.

The violent explosions failed to budge Kaido in the slightest, while Fierce used his ability to absorb and convert all the explosive damage. One of his arms swelled to an enormous size.

Boom!

With one punch, he blasted through the blockage ahead of them.

"You think you can run after throwing bombs at us?"

Oak's vampire ability came from a bat-type Mythical Zoan. Thus, he possessed not only the various abilities of a vampire, but also the traits of a bat.

And darkness was a bat's home ground. Even in pitch-black conditions, he could use reflected ultrasonic waves to perceive everything around him with perfect clarity.

Whoosh!

His figure blurred, and he instantly teleported to the ceiling farther down the passage. Several people were crawling there upside down with specially made suction cups, trying to sneak away. They were the ones who had thrown the bombs earlier.

His scarlet eyes reflected an evil gleam, terrifying them.

"Ghost!"

With a scream, they scrambled away even faster, only for Oak to seize them, one in each hand.

"Let me borrow your lifespans!"

With a sinister chuckle, Oak bared his fangs in the darkness and bit into their necks, gulping down fresh blood.

As their blood drained away, the hair of the people in his hands rapidly turned gray, their skin wrinkled with age, and then their teeth instantly decayed and fell out. In the end, nothing remained but a few skin-and-bone husks tossed onto the ground.

Oak had drained all their blood and lifespans in one go!!

"Kid, that ability of yours is truly dangerous!"

Fierce stepped forward and nudged the lifeless, shriveled corpses with his foot, then gave Oak a snickering smile.

"How about letting me take a couple sips from you too? I can tell your blood is delicious. It's incredibly tempting to me!"

Oak looked at him with a wicked grin.

"Get lost. Don't get any ideas about me, or I'll kill you!"

Fierce threatened coldly. There was no way he would agree to hand over blood that represented his lifespan.

The group continued onward. Since the underground passage was extremely narrow, they wildly destroyed everything in sight along the way, expanding the space around them.

But after turning a corner, they found the space suddenly opening up before them into a vast underground plaza.

"Urgh..."

A powerful, pungent stench hit them, making several of them retch violently.

Oak braced himself against the wall and saw a scene straight out of hell.

As far as the eye could see, the plaza, spanning over a thousand square meters, was filled with naked female corpses. Judging from the various wounds covering their bodies, they had all been tortured to death before being thrown here.

The farther down one looked, the more decayed the corpses became. At the very bottom, there was even nothing left but a layer of white bones. This had clearly accumulated over a long period, not appeared in a single day.

"Hell is empty; the demons walk among men!"

Oak suddenly let out a cold laugh. He had never claimed to be kind—rather, he considered himself evil. Whether during his time as a soldier in the West Blue or after joining the Rocks Pirates, his hands had always been stained with blood.

But compared to this place, his own little bit of evil was child's play. No matter how wicked he was, he had never deliberately created a mass grave of ten thousand people, especially one filled entirely with women too weak to even truss a chicken.

"Heh. To think this is part of the International Alliance Charity Monastery. Sometimes, compared to these sanctimonious bastards, we pirates are just too kind!"

Fierce's lips curled into an endlessly mocking smile. Such a scene had appeared within the world's largest official charity institution—nothing could have been more ironic!